Someone was shouting. She ignored it.
She turned back to the real fountain. It was empty, as she had known it would be, but she could feel the shadow standing there if not the girl.
The pool of blood around Kane’s midsection was building. Sirens rang in the distance, obscured by the returning sound of traffic.
What had she done? Had she just caused another girl to be abducted, to be forgotten by everyone that had ever loved her? Had Kane really been trying to help her?
Only then did the magnitude of her mistake strike her. She might have condemned not just Adelaide but another girl as well to some living hell in another world.
As the sirens came closer, Julie turned and fled.
When Julie opened the door to her apartment, she shivered at the form sitting at the dining room table, belatedly realizing it was Nicole. The harsh fluorescent light above the table made her look like a cadaver.
“Hey,” Julie said, trying to look calm.
She had wandered the city for a long, long while, telling herself over and over she needed to rid herself of the gun. She couldn’t, though. It felt much too powerful, and so she’d kept it in her pocket like a talisman, her magical charm, proof against all that assailed her. Now that seemed like an eminently foolish decision, especially because it felt like Nicole was staring at her pocket, but there was nothing she could do about it.
“What’d you do today?” Nicole asked.
Julie’s gut twisted. She didn’t trust herself enough to sit without something to occupy her hands, so she went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of Odwalla. “Wandered the city.”
“Where?”
“Here and there. East side mostly.” Julie sat and took a healthy swig. It tasted sour, but she swallowed it anyway. “Just wanted to visit the old neighborhood, you know?”
A yellow sticky was stuck to the clear glass table next to Nicole’s elbow. She picked it up and turned it to face Julie. Dr. Thierry, 3pm Thurs.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry, Nickie.”
“I’m working two shifts already, Julie. I can’t be on top of you every minute of the day.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it. Not anymore. You promised me—”
“I’ll go next—”
“Don’t interrupt! You promised you’d keep all your appointments when I agreed to take you in. It was part of the agreement with the hospital—you know that—and it reflects on me, Julie, not you.” She leaned back in her chair, her eyelids heavy, her expression regretful. “I’m more to blame than you are. I barely talked to you after the museum. And your binge last week...”
“Nicole...”
“I didn’t want to rock the boat. But that’s what I did when you were first starting to get sick. I let it go. I hoped it would go away. But I’m not going to do it anymore, Julie. I’ll let you go back to the hospital before I see you go through the same thing as last time.”
“It’s not like that.” Julie was having trouble controlling her breathing.
Nicole shook her head. “It’s exactly like that.” She raised her hand before Julie could speak again. “One more slip, Julie, and I’m going to recommend to Dr. Thierry that you be readmitted.”
A heavy silence settled between them, the only sound Julie’s rapid breath.
“Understand? No more missed appointments. No more slipping to the coffee shop when I’m gone. No more alcohol.”
Julie forced herself to take a drink from her glass. The thick liquid nearly came right back up. Nicole continued to watch until Julie had given her an unsteady nod of her head.
“Good. Now I’m going to catch a few hours of sleep before I have to head in again.” She stood, walked behind Julie, and gripped her shoulder in an affectionate squeeze. “Don’t wake me, for anything.”
After Nicole had gone to bed, all was silent except for the faint sounds of traffic filtering into their fifth-floor apartment. Julie moved to the couch and sat, facing the window. Outside, the night sky was cloudless, leaving the amber cityscape a mere afterthought. She hadn’t realized it, but this was the point she had feared the most—not the police, not Nicole, but the point at which she would find herself alone once more. In front of a mirrored surface.
She knew minutes after she’d fled from the park that she would have to experiment, would have to try to do what Kane did, see the girls on the other side. Already, the dining room light behind her was dimming, as if it were being swallowed by darkness. Julie’s limbs went lax, and she fell deeper into the couch. Her eyelids became heavier, though she didn’t feel sleepy, only distant from the real world.
Laidey wakes from a nap, yawning and rubbing away the sleep.
Don’t worry, baby. I’ll find you.
A chittering scrabbled at the edges of the shadows behind her. Vertigo struck her full on, just like it had at the morgue. Streams of reality swirled around her, and it felt like she could choose one, if only she could figure out which.
Julie blinked.
And there she was. Not Adelaide, but the girl from the park, sitting in the chair Nicole had so recently occupied. She was hugging her midsection, rocking back and forth slowly, rhythmically.
And her eyes...
The hairs on Julie’s arms stood up.
A piece of shadow detached itself from the corner. It pulled itself taller and resolved into a form of slim arms ending in deadly claws, a smile limned by feral teeth, eyes gilded with hatred and hunger and satisfaction.
“Don’t take another step,” she told it.
But it didn’t listen. It was behind the girl now, its hand on her shoulder much the same as Nicole had done to Julie moments ago. But unlike Nicole’s, the beast’s touch was smug. Possessive. Defiant.
“I said leave her alone!” Julie was worried about Nicole waking, but not enough to lower her voice.
The head lowered, and its jaws opened impossibly wide. It set its teeth along the girl’s scalp and bit, slowly, so that her skin scraped away and revealed the bloody red flesh underneath. The girl cowered, and her entire body tensed, but she did not otherwise move.
Julie stood and turned.
The dining room was empty.
She turned back to the reflection.
They were both gone.
She tried again and again to reach the girl, but it didn’t work.
“I’m going to get you, you son of a bitch.”
The sun had already risen by the time Julie woke on the living room couch. Nicole had long ago gone to work, but she’d left a yellow sticky on the front door. Sorry I was such a bitch last night. Meet me at Danny’s for lunch? 1:30.
She rubbed sleep from her eyes and glanced at the clock. She had three hours.
First she scrubbed her face and pulled her hair into a tail. Then she went down to the corner payphone and called three hospitals until she’d found the one Kane had been taken to. The deep-voiced woman on the other end of the phone refused to tell her his room number, but she did offer up that he wasn’t in an ICU. Julie thought seriously about visiting him, but there was no telling what he’d do when he saw her again, or that he’d even be awake.
She pulled the note from her back pocket and looked at it again. Danny’s was downtown. Near Kane’s house. If she couldn’t visit Kane, then she could at least see what was going on in his house.
An hour later, she found herself kneeling by the fire escape window and peering inside. The window had a black garbage bag duct taped over it. She tore the plastic, cupped her hands around her forehead and cheeks, and pressed her face into the hole. She scanned the room while waiting for her eyes to adjust.
One of the morgue vaults was open. Theresa’s. She was lying there, still as perfect as when Kane had brought her in and laid her there.
Julie climbed down through the window and reached Theresa’s side. She brushed down Theresa’s auburn hair, expecting her skin to be cold. But there was a surprising warmth to it—not quite normal temperature, b
ut close. It was a relief to see how calm she looked, though Julie realized this was only a shell. The real girl was lost on the other side.
“You saw her last night, didn’t you?”
Julie jumped and turned. Kane was standing in the doorway, favoring his left side heavily. He was wearing an ID bracelet, and hospital robes were tucked into his blue jeans, which had a brown Rorschach from waist to knee.
“Yes,” Julie replied.
Kane’s eyes were half-lidded, as if he was struggling to keep them open.
“That’s why I couldn’t find her.”
“What do you mean?”
“At the park,” he said, “I tried to rescue her again. But I couldn’t find her. I think she attached herself to you.”
“It was only a vision. I only saw her for a few minutes.”
“It might have felt like a few, but I bet it was longer. Time’s different there.”
“There was no there. It was in my apartment.”
“Were you looking in a mirror?”
“My living room window.”
He nodded. “Then you were on the other side, no matter what it might have seemed like. She’s strong, otherwise she probably wouldn’t have been able to find you, but it’s been almost a week since she was taken. It’s going to be hell trying to save her after tonight.”
Julie’s head was swimming. “Your drawings... They’re all victims, aren’t they? Like my daughter.”
Kane nodded slowly. “I draw them to keep them fresh... To keep them tied to our world.”
Julie’s heart lifted. “So you can bring them back...”
“So I can bring them back.”
Kane’s face turned pale, and he gripped his stomach tighter, but he seemed to be handling the pain all right. Julie had no idea just how he was proposing to get Theresa back, but she knew she wanted to try.
“What do we have to do?”
A look of overwhelming pain overcame Kane and he doubled over. A bottle of pills Julie hadn’t noticed before slipped from his right hand as he tried to break his fall. White pills skittered over the floor like pieces of a broken vase. Julie ran over and helped him roll onto his right side. He curled up in a fetal position, breathing shallowly and quickly.
“Listen, you have to go back to the park.” His eyes closed, and he half-smiled, half-grimaced. “Remember? Where you shot me?”
“No jokes,” Julie said. “You need to come too. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You know more than you think. Go back to the fountain. When you see Theresa, draw her toward our world. Our reality. Once you do”—he tapped his chest—“she’ll be with you.” Kane grunted and doubled up.
“I’m calling the hospital.”
“Don’t!” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ve been through worse. Go. Now. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
Julie hesitated, not wanting to leave him now that she’d finally found someone that knew she wasn’t crazy, but if what he said was true, then Theresa didn’t have much time.
She placed several of the scattered pills into Kane’s hand, drew him a glass of water, and rushed out of the morgue.
By the time Julie reached the park, it was empty except for an old man walking an Irish Terrier. The orange glow of sunset still lit the city in a ruddy glow. The street lights snapped on, ineffective for the moment.
Julie sat in the same bench Kane had and stared at the eclectic antique store across the street. The fountain, which she could see clearly in the window, was dormant. She had been positive when she’d sat down that she would find Theresa, but she was nowhere to be found and Julie’s initial confidence was turning into feelings of failure and a growing belief that this had all been another delusion, that Theresa wasn’t real, that Kane wasn’t real, and all she was doing was sinking herself deeper into a world of her own making.
Julie clawed her fingernails down her arm to snap herself out of it. She tried to slip into the same mindset as the day before, but as the western sky dimmed and night marched over the city, nothing happened. Nothing at all.
How had she done it last night? How had she seen the Others as she was approaching Kane with the revolver?
And then Julie wondered. Maybe she hadn’t done anything. Maybe Theresa had found her. Maybe Julie had simply attracted her attention in some way and Theresa had done the rest.
But how?
How?
Adelaide.
Of course. She had been fixated on Adelaide.
She did so again. She thought of the details that were Adelaide: the baby powder smell of her hair after a bath, the awkward but adorable way in which she ran, the way she used to clap after learning a new word, and the way her blue eyes would light up when she smiled.
The way Julie’s heart would break whenever Laidey cried.
The hairs on Julie’s arms and neck stood on end. The feeling of a million divergences in reality returned. She’d been so focused on Adelaide that she hadn’t realized the fountain was alive. Theresa was standing in it, naked, surrounded by dozens of them—thin, shadowy forms full of sharp smiles and hungry expressions.
Hungry, but not for Theresa. Not anymore. Now they wanted Julie—she could feel it—and she knew, somehow, that when she turned, when she looked upon the fountain directly, they would all still be there, waiting for her.
They seemed to be proposing a trade. Theresa for Julie. They’d had Laidey for a long time now, and they wanted more. They wanted her mother.
Julie stood and turned.
Theresa didn’t look up as Julie approached. One of the creatures put its foul hand on Theresa’s shoulder and let the claws sink in. Blood trickled from one of the claws, then two, then three. Theresa cowered from the pain, but quickly stood straight, perhaps having already learned the whims of her masters.
“Let her go,” Julie said simply as she stopped at the fountain’s edge. She resisted the urge to reach for Theresa.
Several forms broke away from the mass and surrounded Julie. They ate at Julie’s consciousness, sucked at it like foul piglets suckling at their mother’s teats.
“Theresa, look at me.”
She did not. She seemed to be drawn inward. The beast behind her, their ostensible leader, bent down and opened its maw wide. It clamped its jaw around the crown of Theresa’s head. Sucking sounds emanated from its mouth as Theresa cowered in pain and fear.
Draw her toward our world, Kane had said, our reality. But Julie had no idea how to do that. None. And she couldn’t stand here and watch this happen.
There was only one thing she could do.
“Let her go!” she shouted. “You can have me, all right? Just take me!”
The beast stopped sucking and unhinged its jaws from around Theresa’s head. Blood began running down her face in dozens of rivulets.
“You can have me,” Julie said, more calmly now.
This felt right. It felt good, to save one child, even if it wasn’t her own.
The larger shadow smiled, terribly pleased. The others moved in, savoring the moment.
And then, perhaps drawn by Julie’s sacrifice, Theresa raised her head. She seemed to recognize Julie.
And then she smiled.
It felt like Theresa was pouring all of herself into that one magnificent gesture, like she was giving herself to Julie.
And Julie accepted her. Gladly.
It was the last thing she remembered.
A cool wind blew against Julie’s face, bringing the scent of freshly fallen rain along with it. She could feel Theresa, warm and safe and whole, as clearly as she could feel her own heartbeat.
Julie opened her eyes. Flashing red lights were illuminating the boughs of the tree above her, flattening everything in a ghostly sort of bas relief. She was lying on a gurney, and when she tried to lift herself up she realized her wrists and ankles were restrained. An ambulance was nearby, as well as a black-and-white squad car. Nicole was talking with a policeman and two paramedics while dabbing her eyes
with a Kleenex. The policeman pointed with his pen to the stone fountain, and when Nicole answered he began writing in his notepad.
“Nicky?” Julie tried to keep the desperation out of her voice, but knew she had failed.
Nicole turned. She spoke with the policeman and then broke away. “You’re back,” Nicole said in a listless voice once she’d reached Julie’s side.
“Nicky, you can’t do this. Not now. Not today.”
“I’m sorry.” A tear inched down her cheek and then dropped before she could dab it with her Kleenex. “It should have been yesterday.”
Even now, only minutes since she woke, the warmth of Theresa was noticeably cooler. Would she die when it cooled completely or would she just return to them? Julie could afford neither.
“Nicole, you have to listen to me. You have to make them let me go.”
Nicole shook her head. “They’re going to take you to the hospital, and tomorrow Dr. Thierry’s going to check you back in.”
“I can come to the hospital tomorrow. Even a few hours from now.”
Julie had never seen her sister look so desperate. “Julie, you had a gun. They say it’s the same type that was used to shoot that artist, Kane Reynolds.”
Theresa was cooling. This couldn’t be happening, not when she’d managed to save one from them. “I had nothing to do with that,” Julie lied. “Nicole, please.”
Nicole looked up and stepped back, a frightened look on her face.
Julie turned her head just in time to catch a black Eldorado crashing into the front of the ambulance. It pitched the larger vehicle sharply to one side, but then, with the high-pitched sound of steel scraping steel, the Eldorado slipped off the ambulance, hopped the curb, and sped toward the fountain. The cop and paramedics sprinted out of its way, but the car missed them by a wide margin and collided with the fountain. The engine was still revving high and it churned its way off the fountain and accelerated into a row of parked cars. The Eldorado’s rear wheels kicked up two rooster tails of wet grass and dirt as it failed to bulldoze a huge blue Suburban. The policeman and paramedics ran toward it, and Nicole stepped forward, her hand to her mouth.
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Page 14
